Certain software requires third parties to provide digital content in order to make the software valuable to users. A prime example is an application for rendering books, audio, video, etc. Such an application is useful only when digital content—e.g., text, audio, video, etc.—is available for use with the application or device, and such digital content is generally provided by third parties.
Typically, a user obtains the content by using a stand-alone web browser (e.g. INTERNET EXPLORER or NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR) to find and obtain content from Internet web sites that provide it. Sites that distribute content may be located with the aid of a search engine. This method, however, does not offer the user the convenience of shopping for content from within the rendering application.
As an alternative to the stand-alone browser, a browser may be integrated into the content-rendering application, and the application may be hard-coded to point the browser to one or more web sites that provide content. This approach, however, has drawbacks; if the universal record locators (URLs) of particular web sites are hard-coded into the browser, it is difficult to add or delete web sites to or from the list, or to customize the list for different instances of the application.
One solution is to support modification of the list; however, the manufacturer of the content-rendering application or device may have legitimate interests in limiting the set of content providers who are included on the list. For example, the manufacturer may wish to ensure that the content providers adhere to technical standards, or may wish to foster business relationships with certain content providers by granting them exclusive or semi-exclusive membership on the list. If the list can be modified without restriction, then the manufacturer of the application loses the ability to serve these interests by controlling who is on the list.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for a system that overcomes the drawbacks of the prior art.